Tagged with Melbourne Underground Film Festival

antifa notes (september 28, 2018) : Anning, Coulter, Fortress, Palmer, Yaxley-Lennon, Yiannopoulos et. al.

1) More planeloads of racist dickheads on their way

Ann Coulter, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon & Milo Yiannopoulos

‘Australia’ was founded as a dumping-ground for the shit of British Empire. Over two centuries later, it’s now a lucrative market for other forms of animae viles. Thus, Milo Yiannopoulos returns to our shores in November, on this occasion bringing with him another wealthy right-wing blabbermouth, Ann Coulter. If all goes to plan, the pair will be accompanied by Senator Fraser ‘Final Solution’ Anning, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (assuming he’s not back in prison and/or in breach of his bail conditions by leaving E-E-England) and other speakers yet TBA.

The tour kicks off on the Gold Coast on November 29, followed by a ‘VIP Yacht Cruise’ on November 30, and then proceeds to Sydney on December 2, with another v xpnsv boat trip on December 3, and performances in Melbourne (December 5), Adelaide (December 8) and finally Perth (December 11).

The tour is being organised and underwritten by Queensland businessman Dan Spiller AKA ‘Future Now Australia’.

Until very recently, twice-convicted racist Neil Erikson was Mister Spiller’s gopher, which role included paying a nocturnal visit to the family home of sometime-rival Dave Pellowe AKA ‘Axiomatic Events’ (the mob responsible for bringing Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern Down Under).

Presumably, Spiller’s deranged acolyte will now have more time to devote to his various legal defences.

As for the luminaries Spiller will be hoping to turn a hefty profit from, Infowars-supplements salesman Milo has been having a somewhat difficult time of late, whining on Facebook about being uninvited from a conference in October and castigating his fans for failing to shovel enough money in his direction: I have lost everything standing up for the truth in America, spent all my savings, destroyed all my friendships, and ruined my whole life, Yiannopoulos wrote: At some point, you realize it’s occasionally better to spend the money on crabs and cocktails.

Fortunately for him, Facebook remains committed to facilitating his batshit, he receives the red-carpet treatment in Australia, and is celebrated by Newscorpse, including The Australian columnist Janet Albrechtsen. When she’s not enjoying Milo’s anti-Aboriginal diatribes (a sample from his talk in Perth is below), Albrechtsen may be found promoting the work of the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation (AIEF), where she serves as a brand ‘Ambassador’. Quite how Albrechtsen squares her support for Milo with her role as ambassador I don’t know: after I asked the AIEF for comment on Twitter, I was blocked.

Because newsflash [Aboriginal art] really is shit … Now Australians in this sort of bizarre form of middle-class guilt have decided to pay obeisance to a culture that failed to invent the wheel — and whose signature musical achievement is a big stick … The ugly truth that they don’t want you to say out loud is that history has winners and losers. The progressive left wants to turn Western countries into the only developed civilisations in the history of human society that shit on their own accomplishments in favour of vastly inferior civilisations for no apparent reason. Hence we’re confronted with the ugly spectacle of your own nation and ‘welcome to country’ … and the desperate, pathetic attempts to pretend that didgeridoos represent a beautiful and historic cultural achievement, and not a punchline to a joke. Now you might not know this, but there are absolutely no Aboriginal people left alive in Australia — the last ones died in the ’60s and ’70s, and since then George Soros has been shipping over Black Lives Matter activists, giving them tubs of white-out, and telling them to just daub themselves and make all the White people feel bad. Your politicians in a symbol of how intelligent they are have been falling for it for half-a-century.

So much for Milo. As for Coulter, while she’s been splashing about in the white nationalist pool for some years now, in April ‘Coulter gave a little more credence to those accusations [of white nationalist sympathies] by exposing her Twitter following of just under 2 million users to Mike ‘Enoch Peinovich’‘, a neo-Nazi blabbermouth from (((New York))).

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

See also : When Mormons Aspired to Be a ‘White and Delightsome’ People, Emma Green, The Atlantic, September 18, 2017 (‘An historian looks at the legacy of racism in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’).

Fraser Anning (and Clive Palmer)

Since his unexpected elevation to the Australian Senate following the disqualification of crazed pixie Malcolm ‘Jew World Order’ Roberts, Fraser ‘Final Solution’ Anning has been furiously competing with Pauline Hanson for the title of ‘Most AltRight 2018’. Thus his political obsessions have run in rough parallel with those of the baying KKKrowd, from the plight of White South African farmers to the dastardly conspiracy to commit White Genocide™, calling for the forcible eradication of Islam from Australian shores, Putin fanboydom and climate change denial. Recently, however, there’s emerged another contender: billionaire Clive Palmer. See : Alt-Right Memes and Clive Palmer’s Return to Politics, Jordan McSwiney, POP POLITICS AUS, September 27, 2018. Chumbawamba, however, are not down with the bloated idiot. See : Chumbawamba knock down ‘Trump-lite’ Clive Palmer over song use, Naaman Zhou, The Guardian, August 31, 2018.

*Anning’s Facebook page has been (temporarily?) DELed. See : Facebook Deletes Fraser Anning Over ‘Hate Speech’ Complaint, Josh Butler, ten daily, September 28, 2018 | Fraser Anning Has Been Banned From Facebook For Hate Speech, Sam Langford, Junkee, September 28, 2018 | Fraser Anning’s public Facebook page removed for reported hate speech, Jake Evans, ABC, September 28, 2018.

**Anning, along with Avi Yeminem (Australian Liberty Alliance), is scheduled to appear at a rally in Melbourne on October 6 in order to protest censorship by Facebook.

Gavin McInnes

Also touring Down Under is ‘Proud Boys’ founder Gavin McInnes. The chinless wonder is scheduled to be speaking in Melbourne (November 2), Perth (November 4), Adelaide (November 7), Gold Coast (November 8) and Sydney (November 11).

Recently, after declaring his appreciation for NYHC band ‘Sheer Terror’, only to be rebuffed by the boys, McInnes’s followers have rather foolishly declared WAR! on skinheads, in particular RASH and SHARP (See : Hardcore Legends Sheer Terror Take the Proud Boys Down a Notch, Landon Shroder, rvamag, September 26, 2018).

McInnes is proudly-sponsored by Penthouse magazine and publisher Damien Costas, who in September was responsible for arranging Nigel Farage‘s tour of the colonies, and in December 2017 that of Milo Yiannopoulos. Following Milo’s tour, Victoria Police made noises about issuing an invoice to Costas for $50,000 for costs associated with their policing his tour but a savvy Costas told them to bugger off and, happily enough for him, they did.

See also : Rose City Antifa on Proud Boys | Alternative Influence: Broadcasting the Reactionary Right on YouTube, Rebecca Lewis, Data & Society, September 18, 2018 | Nostalgia for the empire and ‘identity politics’ for white people: Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern in Sydney, A Communist At Large (James Robb), August 2, 2018.

2) Brisbane nazi punks f*ck off

Speaking of nazi punks, one, ‘Angel Montague’, is currently running a Facebook page called ‘Brisbane city punks’. Allegedly, Montague has been banned from the pubs The Back Room (Chardons Hotel) in Annerley and The Jubilee in Fortitude Valley and possibly one or two others for drunken violence. Still, by most accounts Brisbane punx give short shrift to neo-Nazi shenanigans, so it would make sense if Montague and her handful of neo-Nazi mates were continued to be shown the door.

3) Fortress (Australia)

Pioneering Aussie reich ‘n’ rollers Fortress have recorded a new album: ‘Brothers of the Storm’. The release comes in the wake of renewed touring by the band in Europe, with the boys playing a Hammerskins event in Frankreich (FRA) on March 18 last year, the annual memorial to Skrewydriver Ian Stuart Donaldson in Melbourne (AUS) on October 14, 2017 and another bonehead gig in Queensland on July 21, 2018.

See also : A Brief History Of Neo-Nazi Music In Australia (December 2, 2010).

One neo-Nazi who probably won’t be making any more muzak is Marcel ‘Flubber’ Kuschela. Kuschela, who performed with ‘Kategorie C’, committed suicide in the German town of Moenchengladbach last week: ‘According to the German newspaper Bild and public broadcaster WDR, the victim is a known right-wing extremist and Hooligan who is part of the extreme right-wing band “Kategorie C” and co-founded a movement known as “Hooligans against Salafists” (Hogesa).’

4) Dick returns to MUFF

In an about-face that surprised no-one, Richard Wolstencroft has returned to the helm of the Melbourne Underground Film Festival (MUFF). This follows a brief moment last year when, after having made a stoopid homophobic statement, he ‘resigned’ as organiser and handballed responsibility for it to a flunkey. But in June he returned.

The fascist meathead’s festival does have its supporters, but such is the stench emanating from Wolstencroft he’s having some difficulty finding a venue to screen his shite. Hence ‘Club Voltaire’ in North Melbourne was on-board, and then not, and now the main venue is Top Secret.

LOL.

You can read more about Wolstencroft’s shitty fascist politics in this blog by Tony Goodfellow — Richard Wolstencroft’s relationship to holocaust denial and Nazis (November 17, 2017) — and you can peruse some unanswered ‘Questions for Richard Wolstencroft’ (June 30, 2018) by SF Lyons here.

See also : After His Show Was Canceled Due to Alleged Neo-Nazi Ties, Boyd Rice Claims ‘Offers Are Coming In’ to Restage It, Sarah Cascone, artnet, September 13, 2018.

5) local and/or general

In AUS, 4Corner’s recent interview with jet-setting fascist shitweasel Steve Bannon is examined by The Guardian writers Nesrine Malik in Indulging Steve Bannon is just a form of liberal narcissism (September 13, 2018) and by Jason Wilson in The consequences of Steve Bannon’s ideas need to be interrogated, not just his words (September 5, 2018); writer Laurie Penny has written a piece in response to the decision by The Economist to provide Bannon another platform in ‘No, I Will Not Debate You’ (September 18, 2018) … which could also be read in light of her earlier adventures with Milo. In BENdigo, meanwhile, anti-Muslim campaigner Julie Hoskin has been forced to resign her position on council after being declared bankrupt — seemingly, in no small thanks to the efforts of lawyer Robert Balzola. See : Bendigo councillor Julie Hoskin, the centre of anti-mosque protests, declared bankrupt and resigns, Peter Lenaghan and Mark Kearney, ABC, September 26, 2018 | Julie Hoskin declared bankrupt one day before sending councillor resignation to City of Greater Bendigo, Adam Holmes, The Bendigo Advertiser, September 26, 2018.

In FRA, two boneheads have been convicted of the murder of anti-fascist Clement Méric in 2013 (see : Two boneheads convicted over 2013 death of anti-fascist activist, The Guardian, September 15, 2018); in GER, Facebook Fueled Anti-Refugee Attacks in Germany, New Research Suggests (Amanda Taub and Max Fisher, The New York Times, August 21, 2018); in GRE, Kevin Ovenden has authored a ‘new study that documents the murderous activities of Greece’s far-right Golden Dawn’ (The terrorist activity of neonazi organisations in Europe – The case of Golden Dawn, jailgoldendawn, September 18, 2018); last week in ITA, an MEP, Eleonora Forenza, and their assistant were attacked by members of neo-Fascist organisation Casapound after attending an anti-racist rally (MEP and assistant attacked by Italian far-right group, Lili Bayer, politico.eu, September 22, 2018); in the USA, Hope Not Hate ventured ‘Inside America’s biggest anti-Muslim organisation’ (Charlie Prentice, September 16, 2018); also in the US, Derek Black, son of White supremacist and Stormfront founder Don Black, stars in Renouncing Hate: What Happens When a White Nationalist Repents (Wes Enzinna, The New York Times, September 10, 2018), while Media Matters examines some of the white nationalists who write for FOX News’ Tucker Carlson’s batshit website The Daily Caller in ‘The Daily Caller has published white supremacists, anti-Semites, and bigots. Here are the ones we know about.’ (September 5, 2018); Billy Briggs for The Ferret writes that ‘YouTube provides a network for far right extremists such as Scot Colin Robertson, aka Millennial Woes, to promote white supremacist views and radicalise people, according to a new report’ (Far-right Scots vlogger named in report on YouTube extremist networks, September 23, 2018); the report — ‘Alternative Influence: Broadcasting the Reactionary Right on YouTube’ — by Rebecca Lewis for Data & Society (September 18, 2018), can be read here.

More generally: ‘Far right’ groups may be diverse – but here’s what they all have in common, Daphne Halikiopoulou, The Conversation, September 27, 2018 | The Religion of Whiteness Becomes a Suicide Cult, Pankaj Mishra, The New York Times, August 30, 2018 (‘A wounded and swaggering identity geopolitics puts the world in grave danger.’) | Against mirror world: fascists were not socialists, Comrade Motopu, libcom, August 26, 2018.

Finally, str8 outta Moscow, RUS, comes …

antifa notes (november 29, 2017) : From MUFF to Romper Stomper

First, a few updates:

1) Dick & MUFF

Following his batshit, public, and VERY ANGRY reaction to the same-sex marriage ballot survey’s majority support, after first doubling-down on his defiance of the (((gay))) agenda and — not coincidentally — following MUFF’s sponsors, and a considerable number of its supporters, declaring MUFF to be FUBAR, Richard Wolstencroft announced his resignation as Director and handballed responsibility for it to his mate and MUFF patron, Frank Howson. Whether or not this means MUFF will continue remains an open question. In any case, Dick did find vocal support from at least one other filmmaker: Ian Nicholson of the Sydney Short Film School. Ian also decried the influence of ‘dumb, lefty cunts’ on Australian culture and society, and compared gay couples to motorbikes. True Story! Resembling Richard in more ways than one, after doubling-down on his original cray-cray and — not coincidentally — after the Australian Cinematographers Society announced that he was no longer welcome to use their facilities to run his skool, Ian made a public apology.

See : Richard Wolstencroft & MUFF ~versus~ Those Degenerate Gays, November 18, 2017.

2) Patriot Blue

‘Patriot Blue’ is serial pest Neil Erikson’s latest political vehicle, one into which he’s enrolled his stoopid mate, Ricky/Rikki Turner. (Other participants in the stoopid have included Paul ‘Guru’ Franzi, Pommy whinger Garry Hume, George Jameson and Penny Tridgell (Party for Freedom, Sydney), Luke Phipps, Lachlan/Logan Spalding, and a handful of others.) After having made a splash by disrupting council meetings and, most recently, racially abusing Labor MP Sam Dastyari at a pub, on Friday (November 24), Neil and Ricky/Rikki took it upon themselves to attempt to disrupt a solidarity rally with the men on Manus. Collective Action have published an account of what followed here: What happened in Melbourne yesterday? (November 25, 2017). Yesterday’s Manus solidarity rally in Melbourne did not “turn violent”, it was attacked first by a known fascist and then by the police. The racist violence of the Australian state, directed at Indigenous peoples, Muslims, and anyone who would dare seek asylum whilst non-white, continues to embolden far-right thugs …

Finally, in addition to clashing with STAN over their unauthorised use of ‘Patriot Blue’, Neil and Ricky/Rikki have also fallen foul of TOLL, which yesterday published the following statement on the boys’ use of TOLL uniforms during their dickheaded stunts:

3) FREE PHIL!

Old mate Phill Galea is slowly making his way through the courts — today he was again having his bRanes assessed. AAP:

Probe into accused Vic terrorist’s mind
November 29, 2017

A far-right anti-Islam extremist accused of planning to bomb left-wing groups in Melbourne may not stand trial for terrorism offences if a second expert finds him mentally unfit.

Phillip Galea, 33, faced the Victorian Supreme Court on Wednesday via video link for a brief directions hearing about his case, which is still before a lower court.

Galea is charged with making preparations for terrorist attacks against properties occupied by Melbourne anarchist groups between November 2015 and August 2016.

The 33-year-old is also charged with collecting or making documents to prepare for terrorist acts between September 2015 and August 2016.

A pre-trial committal hearing in the Melbourne Magistrates Court has been delayed amid concerns about his mental state.

Prosecutors and defence lawyers on Wednesday said they are waiting for a report by a second mental health expert before deciding if Galea’s fitness to stand trial should be determined in the Supreme Court.

Galea is due to see a psychiatrist on December 13 for a second opinion.

His case will return to the Supreme Court on January 29 so counsel can decide the next step.

Galea has been in custody since he was arrested in August 2016.

Police have accused Galea of preparing to target various locations inhabited by the Melbourne Anarchist Club and Melbourne Resistance Centre.

The Braybrook resident allegedly told an associate he wanted to cause as much devastation to his targets as possible in a coordinated attack, according to a summary previously released by the Magistrates Court.

He allegedly ordered potassium nitrate for smoke bombs, aligned himself with right-wing groups True Blue Crew and Patriots Defence League Australia, and researched how to make improvised explosive devices.

Note that, while the majority of his patriotik kameraden have run screaming from Galea, in Queensland one-man band Mike Holt is spearheading a campaign to #FREEPHIL. Launched in August, Mike’s petition has to date attracted over 1,000 signatories. According to the OAP, Phil Galea, Australian patriot, was arrested and accused of being a terrorist in August 2016 after he followed and filmed ANTIFA terrorist thugs at their headquarters. The police allege that he had “bomb making materials”, but Phil denies this and says he can prove why he had the chemicals for peaceful scientific experiments.

LOL.

More recently (November 16, 2017), Mike published a letter from Galea about a dead patriot called Shannon Wallace, in which Phillthy speculates that Wallace may have suffered an ‘unnatural’ death (possibly murdered by use of a ‘sonic gun’?). In early 2016 I visited Shannon Wallace in what was called The Compound by him and his father, writes Phil, before providing a garbled account of various persons and events and identifying Darren Norsworthy (PDLA and ‘Battalion 88’) and ‘Aaron’ [Dekeulenaer, presumably; a nazi dork from Ballarat associated with PDLA, ‘Battalion 88’ and RWRAU] as police informants. Phill also writes:

If I was murdered (or had an “accident”), Shannon was to use an internet café to sign into my e-mail account and send Blair Cottrell (UPF), Mike Holt (Restore Australia), and Liz Sheppard (Reclaim Australia) all of my recordings from a fake account. Then Shannon was to use the Linux computer I had given him to make dozens of copies of the discs and hand them out to all True Blue Crew Members who were on a list I had given him when he went to the Melton anti-mosque rally. Then he was to hand the discs directly to the press as well.

And so on and so forth …

See also : Will the Alt Right Produce the Next Timothy McVeigh?, Alex Reid Ross, AlterNet, November 27, 2017 (‘The history of white nationalism suggests we could be entering a period of violent upheaval’).

4) Pauline Hanson ~versus~ Queensland

Sadly, NASA and the United Nations successfully conspired to rob Malcolm ‘Jew World Order’ Roberts of his rightful place in Queensland’s state parliament on the weekend. Worse yet, it seems as though possibly only one ONP candidate, Stephen Andrew, will get the bump. On a brighter note, Pauline Hanson will be pocketing a cool million from the election, adding to the estimated six million dollarydoos she’s earned contesting numerous elections over the last 20 years.

5) Anti-Semitism

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) has published its annual report on anti-Semitism in Australia. See : Antisemitic incidents in Australia up nearly 10% over year, study says, Helen Davidson, The Guardian, November 27, 2017; read/download a copy of the report here. Among those who get a guernsey are Hitler fanboys Antipodean Resistance, Mark Latham’s chums at The Convict Report (‘The Dingoes’), the Australia First Party, Nationalist Alternative, United Nationalists Australia and Blair Cottrell, David Hilton and even Brendon O’Connell. Speaking of O’Connell, it appears that he’s currently stuck in jail in New Zealand, presumably before Kiwi authorities deport him (see : Anti-semitic blogger detained for nearly six weeks, Radio New Zealand, November 21, 2017).

See also : Nazi-inspired vandals deface central Ballarat, damage house, Brendan Wrigley, The Courier, November 14, 2017.

Coming at things from a slightly different angle, the latest issue of the Australian Jewish Democratic Society’s zine ‘Just Voices’ (No.14, November 2017) is also dedicated to the subject of anti-Semitism, a broad topic that encompasses many different and related phenomena, past and present. It deserves our attention now no less than ever, especially since it is largely neglected in the Left, and concerns many developments within mainstream culture, including the American government openly spouting antisemitic views. It also contains, inter alia, an interview with the compañerxs of Jews against fascism. NB. Jaf are also organising a presence at the Milo Yiannopoulos show on Monday (December 4).

6) From Cootamundra to Cheltenham


Above : James Buckle of gun lobby group Firearm Owners United outside his neo-Nazi clubhouse in Cheltenham

Speaking of Nazis … back in September there was a by-election in the regional seat of Cootamundra in NSW, which the Nationals managed to retain (but experienced a big swing away from the party, rendering it nominally marginal). Australia First Party fuehrer Dr James Saleam ran (coming last on 453 votes or 0.99%), as did Matthew Stadtmiller of the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers (who got just a few more votes than Dr Jim). Earlier, in January, Stadtmiller had described NSW MP (and Minister for Lands and Forestry and Racing) Paul Toole as a ‘Nazi’; this prompted an article in the regional Southern Cross newspaper in September about his faux pas, one which prompted a further contribution from former Cootamundra MP Katrina Hodgkinson. Weirdly, the article also included commentary from James Buckle of gun lobby group ‘Firearm Owners United’: “We expect this sort of thing from Greens candidates, not from outgoing Nationals,” group president James Buckle told the Herald on Thursday morning. “It’s just another sign the Nationals have abandoned their rural constituents and we’ll be actively lobbying against them in the Cootamundra by-election.” That’s wEiRd because, apart from anything else, Buckle is a Melbourne resident and one of those who, in addition to Blair Cottrell and Thomas Sewell, is part of something called ‘The Lads Society’: a clubhouse for neo-Nazis based in Cheltenham.

See : ‘The Lads Society’ : A new neo-Nazi social club opens in Melbourne, October 28, 2017.

7) Fascism in reality (and phantasy)

Romper Stomper returns to the (small) screen in the New Year. See : Geoffrey Wright on his Romper Stomper remake – and why Donald Trump inspired him, Tim Elliott, The Age, November 17, 2017.
• “Sweetman was a Melbourne neo-Nazi who axe-murdered a fellow bonehead at a party to celebrate Adolf Hitler’s birthday, which sounds ridiculous but is true,” Wright tells me. Wright read all the reports on Sweetman, and even talked to people who knew him, eventually drawing from his story the rudiments of Hando, the character at the centre of what would become the film Romper Stomper. Old Mate was released from Fulham prison on parole in October 2005, after serving 15 years of a 20-year sentence for the 1990 murder of David Noble; he then (briefly) settled in @ The Tote along with Patrick O’Sullivan. A former Creatard, O’Sullivan is now ‘Combat 18’; in 2002, O’Sullivan was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison for stabbing another bonehead (also at a party) — which is where he became chums with Sweetman.
• The day I visit the Melbourne set, Wright is directing a scene in which Farron and Laila appear on No Quarter, ostensibly to discuss a clash that took place, at a recent halal-food festival, between Patriot Blue members and hard-left activists. The clash would appear to be based on an incident in Melbourne in April last year in which Nick Folkes and the Party for Freedom had its anti-Muslim rally gatecrashed by anTEEfa.
• Like Romper Stomper, the US film Imperium (2016) — which borrows its title from Francis Parker Yockey‘s 1948 magnum opus — also features anTEEfa, who are known as ‘The Anti-Fascist League’ (in Romper Stomper they’re called ‘anti-fash’ or something). At one point, Daniel Radcliffe and his nazi chums — Radcliffe plays the role of an FBI agent tasked with infiltrating the nazi group — assemble at a comrade’s haus to watch a TV show promoting an upcoming nazi rally. The hosts make reference to their opposition (The Anti-Fascist League) and then show some photos of the mob expected to rock up and try and spoil the party. Fuck me dead if it isn’t a photo of THE LEAGUE in action in Melton in November 2015.

See also : Dead fascist poets society: why CasaPound are no book club, libcom, November 10, 2017 /// I learned German with white supremacist Richard Spencer, Julie Hill, The Spinoff, November 12, 2017 /// A Contemporary Taxonomy of Britain’s Far Right, base, November 21, 2017 (‘Anti-fascists need to look at how the far-right has organised in the past and is currently organising if they are to halt the rise of a potentially resurgent far-right’) /// Andrew Anglin: The Making of an American Nazi, Luke O’Brien, The Atlantic, December 2017 (‘How did Andrew Anglin go from being an antiracist vegan to the alt-right’s most vicious troll and propagandist—and how might he be stopped?’).

8) anTEEfa!


Above : ‘Follow Your Leader’ by David Wilcox : Cover of Anarchist Studies (Vol.25, No.2), Autumn 2017

Finally, there’s been a blizzard of writings on anTEEfa this year. Here’s a sample:

The First Thing Colleges Must Understand About Antifa: What the Word Means, Nell Gluckman, The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 10, 2017.

Pro Anti, Angela Mitropoulos, The New Inquiry, August 20, 2017 (‘Antifa’s horizon is in toppling the legitimacy of extraction and ownership anchored in presumably natural foundations’) /// Antifascism: Pros and cons, Ross Wolfe, The Charnel House, August 20, 2017 /// The Forgotten Roots of Antifa, Kevin Mattson, Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, September 19, 2017 (‘Although defenses of Antifa, like a recent one in The New Inquiry, are relevant, the movement may do well to remember its less romanticized intellectual roots, from Orwell to Camus’).

… and for #lulz, see : Alt-right Trump supporters and left-wing Bernie Sanders fans should join together to defeat capitalism, Slavoj Žižek, The Independent, November 25, 2017 (‘Class struggle is back as the main determining factor of our political life – even if the stakes appear to be totally different, from humanitarian crises to ecological threats, class struggle lurks in the background and casts its ominous shadow’).

BONUS! Slime

Richard Wolstencroft & MUFF ~versus~ Those Degenerate Gays

[UPDATE (November 21, 2017) : While it’s true that a majority of folks seem a bit pissed at Richard’s stoopid, for the defence, Ian Nicholson of Sydney Short Film School has come out all guns blazing. Go Ian!

UPDATE (November 20, 2017) : Today Richard issued a garbled apology, announced his resignation from the role of Director, and appointed Frank Howson in his stead.]

Local filmmaker, self-described ‘transcendental fascist’ and, more recently, Trump fanboy and partisan of the AltRight,* Richard Wolstencroft, established the Melbourne Underground Film Festival (MUFF) in 2000 after the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) declined screening his 1999 film Pearls Before Swine; as one critic wrote of the film: I’ve kind of always distrusted Richard Wolstencroft, filmmaker, Melbourne Underground Film Festival director, and tedious bore, partly because of his avowed fascist tendencies. Now that I’ve paid money for and sat through his fucking film, I just want to beat the cunt senseless.

MUFF — for which Richard is Director-For-Life — is no stranger to controversy. In 2003, he attempted to arrange a screening of The Search for the Truth in History, a 1993 propaganda film by Holocaust denialist David Irving. The screening was eventually cancelled, as several hundred people protested outside the venue, including the Australian Jewish Democratic Society’s Sol Salbe [who] said: “I’m here because my entire family was wiped out in the Holocaust.” Previously, in April 2000, a High Court judge branded Irving a racist, an anti-Semite, a Holocaust denier and a falsifier of history; the legal saga was recently dramatised in the film Denial (2016).

Still, that storm in a teacup took place 14 years ago — and what’s a few million dead Jews to Melbourne’s film community?

Fast-forward to nao, and it seems that Richard’s big mouth has gotten him and his film festival/vanity project into trouble once again. On this occasion, his commentary** on the results of the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey is what done it:

Things only got worse for Richard’s MUFF from this point, with the disgust at his homophobic stoopid leading to several sponsors (both knowing — howler bar — and unknowing — JOY 94.9) withdrawing their support, and one actor — Lachy Hulme — even deciding ‘to officially rescind my MUFF Best Actor award for “Four Jacks” (2001) and terminate any association with his film festival.’

See : Festival director’s “Yes” vote spray ignites backlash, Anders Furze, The Citizen, November 17, 2017 >>> Melbourne Underground Film Fest Director Faces Backlash For Homophobic Post, Maxim Boon, themusic.com.au, November 17, 2017 >>> Melbourne’s Underground Film Festival Director Under Fire Over A Homophobic Facebook Rant, Tom Clift, Junkee, November 18, 2017 >>> Same-sex marriage rant on Facebook lands festival director in trouble, Ben Graham, news.com.au, November 18, 2017.

Still, when all’s said and done, both Richard’s MUFF and the shit that regularly pours from his mouth and keyboard has come into criticism before, to little effect, and while it remains useful to him as a self-promotional tool, it seems likely MUFF will be back again next year, with new(er) sponsors and another crop of yuppie scum to entertain.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

* Wolstencroft began contributing to the ‘Alternative Right’ blog in November 2014; its chief editor is Colin Liddell.
** On ‘decadence’, see : ‘Decadence’ by Alex Trotter (Drunken Boat, No.2, 1994).

Richard Wolstencroft ~versus~ Richard Wolstencroft

In brief: several weeks ago, self-described “transcendental fascist” and filmmaker Richard Wolstencroft commenced legal action against a blogger named Shane Lyons. Richard has accused Shane of stalking and defaming him. On January 11, Richard applied for an intervention order against Shane preventing him from publishing online any material critical of Richard. The (interim) order was not granted, and further hearings are scheduled to take place later in the year.

For the benefit of those of you arriving late, Shane has a blog titled ‘Richard Wolstencroft’s Freedom Ride’ which has republished various comments, mostly regarding politics, Richard has made on his Facebook account. Here Richard, inter alia, has expressed the view that apart from engaging in a few excesses–which may now, in hindsight, be forgiven–the Nazi regime was a basically benign force, committed to establishing order in Europe. Further, that WWII was the result of British arrogance and that Hitler, if he had been allowed to rule Europe, would have protected the British Empire from its enemies.

Hitler’s failure to enact his vision has now resulted, sadly, in parts of London resembling Afghanistan.

Apart from expressing distaste for demographic change in Londinium, in his other commentary Richard expresses the fears and anxieties common to thousands of other Australians regarding refugees, immigration, deracination, cultural and political decadence: the kinds of views which Theantibogan (or perhaps pwsnt) and a handful of other blogs spend some time examining (albeit, in Richard’s case, with better spelling and grammar than is typical).

Unlike most of the so-called ‘bogans’ who express admiration for Hitler or hatred and contempt for refugees, however, Richard has a public profile, derived in large part from his role as Director of the Melbourne Underground Film Festival (MUFF). The Festival, which Richard inaugurated in 2000 after one of his films was rejected by the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF), will this year be celebrating its 11th birthday.

Over time, MUFF has managed to attract some small following (the exact size of which varies considerably according to the source) and a degree of support from the business and corporate sector. In 2010, the major sponsor was Canon. To the extent that Richard’s apparent embrace of fascism and xenophobia reflects badly on MUFF, it mitigates against the possibility of the Festival attracting wider support, especially from businesses wary of associating themselves with the propagation of racism and fascism. The Facebook comments Shane has republished on his blog, then, would appear to have embarrassed Richard, and as noted he is now using legal means to have them removed, and to apply for a gag to to be placed on Shane to prevent him from further criticising Richard’s politics. Note also that prior to this latest court action, Richard successfully lobbied WordPress.com to have ‘Richard Wolstencroft’s Unconcealedness’, Shane’s previous blog, closed down. This was agreed to on the grounds that Shane’s blog was engaged in copyright violation (viz, Richard had copyright over his Facebook commentary, and in republishing this commentary without Richard’s permission, Shane was violating Richard’s intellectual property rights).

Or something like that. Crikey‘s Luke Buckmaster reviewed some of the issues raised in a post on his blog in September last year (*UPDATED** – Ferocious film politics: ex-MUFF volunteer launches smear campaign against festival director, September 7, 2010); Richard has a few choice words for “[t]hat ratbag stalker and total tool Shane Lyons” here.

The issues raised by Richard’s legal action are interesting ones, especially those which relate to copyright but also, moreover, in light of Richard’s public reputation as an advocate of ‘freedom of speech’. After all, it was partly on this basis that Richard was invited to launch the Australian Sex Party’s state election campaign in Melbourne last year. According to Richard, however, ‘freedom of speech’ is one thing, defamation another, and in re-publishing Richard’s Facebook commentary without his permission Shane is guilty of both stalking and defamation. In either case, on January 22 Shane published the following announcement on his blog. I republish it here because I think it deserves a wider audience.

In Support of Richard Wolstencroft
January 22, 2011

You might have heard by now that Richard Wolstencroft, director of the Melbourne Underground Film Festival, has finally been charged over the illegal screening of LA Zombie back in August. He’s been offered a slap on the wrist – a diversion notice, which would require him to pay a “donation” to a charity. His mates at Beat magazine were the first with the news [here].

Australia’s classification/censorship laws are ridiculous, with tighter – and more inconsistent – restrictions on what adults are allowed to watch than most Western countries, completely banning films like LA Zombie and Ken Park; video games that would get an “R” rating if one existed; and videos about graffiti “vandals”, giving them the same legal status as bomb-making instructions. For these reasons I support MUFF’s protest screening of LA Zombie.*

But Richard Wolstencroft is currently embroiled in another court case – concerning someone else’s freedom to expose and criticise Richard’s racist and neo-fascist political views, and instigated by the man himself.

Two days before the new year I was served with a Summons and Application for an Intervention Order, in relation to this website [link].

At the initial hearing on January 11 I declined to make formal undertakings to stop monitoring Richard’s Facebook page and publicly criticising him. I said I would defend the case, and the full hearing is likely to be in May or June.

The magistrate refused to grant Richard an interim order against me, on the grounds that there was no indication of danger to person or property. This was even before I pointed out that he felt so threatened he waited four months before applying for the order, and sent his girlfriend around to knock on my door and talk to me, pretending she was looking for someone else.**

There’s not much more I want to say about this publicly just yet, but because Wolstencroft has continued to spray his “stalking” accusations around I have to make a couple of basic points, which will also be part of my defence in the court case.

• Richard treats his Facebook page as primarily a blog for speaking to an audience, accepting “friend” requests no questions asked, including from my pseudonymous account. He has over 1300 Facebook “friends”, including Travis Bickle and Blackbeard the Pirate.
• My focus has always been on his politics, his use of MUFF as a platform for promoting his politics, and his use of this supposedly non-profit film festival for his personal gain. I have never taken any interest in his personal life.
• His far-right politics are extreme, appalling and a poisonous presence in the Australian film community, and they need to be criticised in the strongest possible terms. Should someone who writes things like this have the right to stifle criticism?

“…the Nazis only wanted a united Europe like the EU, anyway, in essence. They were a little excesses [sic]. But that can be forgiven now given some historical distance. WW2 was a pointless civil war brought on by British arrogance. Hitler would have protected the British Empire and it would exist in a greater glory to this day if he had been allowed to. In the end England has lost everything and parts of London now resemble Afghanistan. Some Victory!”

* Mind you, Richard said at the time that he would screen something else if the police showed up. Margaret Pomeranz, when she tried to screen Ken Park in 2003, at least had the guts to still hit the play button with the police already there and waiting to pounce [link].
** This was apparently to verify my address. It was another 17 days before he applied for the order.

Richard Wolstencroft : Transcendental Fascist

Courtesy of Luke Buckmaster in Crikey and Richard Watts at ArtsHub, Richard Wolstencroft, the fascist director of the Melbourne Underground Film Festival, has lashed out at critics — and declared that some of his best friends are, indeed, black.

**UPDATED** – Ferocious film politics: ex-MUFF volunteer launches smear campaign against festival director
Luke Buckmaster
Cinetology (Crikey)
September 7, 2010

Richard Wolstencroft, director [of] the Melbourne Underground Film Festival (MUFF), has responded to a series of questions in relation to this blog post, which was originally published last Thursday (September 2) and focused on an online smear campaign against him conducted by an ex-MUFF volunteer with some heavy accusations and a big axe to grind. The original post is, unedited, below…

Mud-slinging mars a successful MUFF
Richard Watts
ArtsHub
September 6, 2010

The Melbourne Underground Film Festival (MUFF), which closed on August 29 with a successful screening of the banned film L.A. Zombie by Canadian shock auteur Bruce LaBruce – the second screening of the film at the festival – has been the subject of a vituperative attack by an individual believed to be a MUFF ex-volunteer…

(NB. Luke also writes about film for Spookmag, one of the media sponsors of MUFF. ArtsHub, for which Richard writes, was established by The Dramatic Group P/L. The Group also established another MUFF sponsor: ScreenHub.)

Fascism

The blog at the centre of the controversy is titled Richard Wolstencroft’s Unconcealedness: “A collection of damning quotes from the “Aristocratic Fascist” and director of the Melbourne Underground Film Festival, taken from Facebook and elsewhere.” The (unauthorised) collection basically confirms what Richard has already repeatedly informed The World of regarding his political views: he’s a fascist. Only, the quotes express his enthusiasm for the subject rather more crudely than it has been elsewhere.

A rather amusing sample of his deathless prose:

…the Nazis only wanted a united Europe like the EU, anyway, in essence. They were a little excesses [sic]. But that can be forgiven now given some historical distance. WW2 was a pointless civil war brought on by British arrogance. Hitler would have protected the British Empire and it would exist in a greater glory to this day if he had been allowed to. In the end England has lost everything and parts of London now resemble Afghanistan. Some [v]ictory!

Wolstencroft is no stranger to controversy, and actively cultivates it. In this sense, he’s a provocateur — one whose actions can readily be understood as having fairly crass, commercial, and therefore otherwise unremarkable motivations. Michelle Griffin writes (Bad reputation, The Age, June 26, 2004):

Wolstencroft, 35, has been infuriating Melburnians for more than a decade, since he founded The Hellfire Club, the fashionable S&M club, back in 1992, under his rather bland pseudonym, Richard Masters.

For years, he was the public face of the leather and lace-up crowd, generating headlines with calls to loosen pornography laws, and ill-advised plans for Nazi dress-up nights. (Ultimately cancelled after protests.)

Wolstencroft’s adherence to some form of revitalised fascism, however, does not seem to have been adopted simply for its effect but, rather, is the product of considered, and serious, reflection.

In 2003, the slogan for the festival, then in its fourth year, was ‘This time it’s political’. (See also : Scribblings: Richard’s Fascist Flirtation, The Review, August 2003.) Wolstencroft elaborated upon the meaning of ‘politics’ and his own perspective in his Director’s statement, declaring himself to be a ‘fascist’, albeit ‘transcendental’: “Transcendental fascism as a concept interests me because it is transcendental.” (Wolstencroft failed to add that transcendental fascism, as a giant hedgehog named Spiny Norman, scares him.)

Later, Wolstencroft declared that “I… have invented a political theory known as Transcendental Fascism, a non-racist regenerated form of fascism”.

A kinder, gentler fascism.

Well. Kinda…

Wolstencroft the New Inventor references the Nazi philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), who “subtly” — perhaps too subtly — “attempted to bring both the University and… the [Nazi] party under the umbrella of his thought”. According to Wolstencroft, Heidegger’s fascism was ‘transcendental’: non-racist, non-sexist and rational (and therefore well-equipped to fight metaphysical and religious quackery): Wolstencroft’s phantasy is of “a second Greek epoch”, not the sordid fascism “of Bush, Sharon, Blair” et. al.. Further:

A new conception of fascism will take into account the inherent paradoxes of its nature and dialogue and interact with other political philosophies worthy of integration like Anarchism, Socialism and conceptions of justice, equality, liberty and autonomy. One of my philosophy professors said this theory sounded nothing at all like fascism, and I replied “good”. But why the moniker fascism at all? What is that line from Salo, “We fascists are the only true anarchists” that haunts me? Well I believe fascism to be about the brute application of power and that all politics is inherently fascist in nature. Why transcendental then? Because in the name of Sex, I want to change and temper this brute fact but still retain the only force possible to truly fight the oppressive status quo! A paradox, of course, like the fact that there are beings rather than nothing.

Genius.

Festival

The 2003 MUFF program included a number of films emanating from the Institute for Historical Review/Noontide Press, a US-based group and publisher which specialises in Holocaust denial. The one which caused the most controversy featured British Nazi historian David Irving (1938–). Barred from entering Australia, his banning prompted the 1993 speech which forms the basis of the film. It’s described by MUFF as follows:

    The Search for Truth in History

    David Irving’s address, recorded in 1993 following his ban from visiting Australia, is his response to this outlandish state of affairs. This session will hopefully include a live post screening phone hook up with David Irving in the USA so he can speak directly with an Australian audience and answer questions. Stay tuned as we ‘go over the top’ and fight censorship for real.

And by the IHR:

    Here is the famed British [h]istorian’s witty brilliant response to the Australian government’s 1993 order banning him from the country, and the organized Jewish campaign behind it. Irving is at his dynamic best here as he describes the world-wide efforts to prosecute, ban and censor him, and explains the evidence that convinced him that there were no “gassings” at Auschwitz. A moving testimony to a great historian’s commitment to historical truth and freedom of speech.

The great historian’s commitment to historical truth is usefully examined in Roni Stauber’s ‘From Revisionism to Holocaust Denial – David Irving as a Case Study’ (July 25, 2000).

Wolstencroft arranged for the screening of three other films produced and distributed by IHR/Noontide at the 2003 MUFF, each edited versions of speeches delivered at one of a number of gatherings organised by the Institute. Aside from Irving, the speeches were by French Holocaust denialist Robert Faurisson, some bloke called Said Arikat (The Israel-Palestine Conflict: A Palestinian Perspective, from the 14th IHR Conference, 2002), and Akira Kawachi, a Japanese fella inspired by US Holocaust revisionists’ “dedication to objectivity and historical truth” to redress the presumed bias of US historians when it comes to examining the Japanese role in WWII and subsequent US occupation.

MUFF:

    My Revisionist Method
    [From the 13th IHR Conference, 2000]

    The man who made revisionism a household word in his native France goes back to his own revisionist beginnings, and then to the frontiers of revisionism today, in this lecture. Professor Faurisson recounts how his youthful studies in Greek and Latin, followed by his celebrated deciphering of the meaning of such difficult modern poets as Rimbaud and Lautréaumont, guided him to his revisionist method: simple, “nuts and bolts,” free of pedantry, going to the centre of things.

Noontide:

    The man who made revisionism a household word in his native France goes back to his own revisionist beginnings, and then to the frontiers of revisionism today, in this sparkling lecture. Professor Faurisson recounts how his youthful studies in Greek and Latin, followed by his celebrated deciphering of the meaning of such difficult modern poets as Rimbaud and Lautréaumont, guided him to his revisionist method: simple, “nuts and bolts,” free of pedantry, going to the center of things. Faurisson reveals how his “No holes, no Holocaust!” challenge springs directly from this method, shares amusing details from his conversation with Deborah Lipstadt, and updates on the Anne Frank “diary” in an unforgettable performance.

MUFF:

    The Influence of America’s Postwar Occupation on Today’s Japan
    [From the 10th IHR conference, October 1990]

    Hiroshima survivor, career diplomat, and scholar of international affairs Akira Kawachi discusses the influence of America’s post war occupation on today’s Japan. With rare frankness, Professor Kawachi blasts the one-sided history of World War II imposed by the occupiers, and pays tribute to the spirit and search for objectivity and historical truth.

IHR:

    The Influence of America’s Postwar Occupation on Today’s Japan

    Hiroshima survivor, career diplomat, and scholar of international affairs Kohchi discusses the influence of America’s postwar occupation on today’s Japan. With rare frankness for a Japanese, Professor Kawachi blasts the one-sided history of World War II imposed by the occupiers, and pays tribute to American revisionists’ dedication to objectivity and historical truth.

In 2004, MUFF, against the wishes of the filmmakers, screened a Crass ‘double feature’ (@ FFour (F4), aka New Guernica) — presumably as a result of Wolstencroft’s being “driven to make a significant contribution to the cultural enrichment of the community by illustrating the vibrancy, vitality and enthusiasm of the free-thinking, alternative, independent filmmaking scene in Australia and overseas”.

Or maybe not.

(See also : Festival refuses to be MUFFled, Jake Wilson, The Age, August 21, 2009. Wilson reviews one of the films screened at MUFF XI, Lanfranchi’s Memorial Discotheque, here.)

Film

Apart from his role as director of MUFF and impresario of a kinky nightclub for yuppies, Wolstencroft has also made a few films: Bloodlust (1992), Pearls Before Swine (1999) and, most recently, The Beautiful and Damned (2008). Indeed, it was the exclusion of his 1999 film from the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) that prompted Wolstencroft to establish MUFF. I’m not sure precisely why MIFF decided not to program his film, but based on the handful of critical responses to it, it seems that it was because the film was shit.

Be that as it may, Wolstencroft’s swinish film *ed the US alt.noise merchant Boyd Rice in the role of ‘Daniel’, a hitman-of-wood. Like his director friend, Rice is a bit of a boofhead, whose flirtations with fascism have occasionally resulted in his experiencing some minor career difficulties, but which have otherwise proven to merely confirm — in the minds of his fans at least — his status as a courageous and iconoclastic artiste. Thus according to Mute, Rice is “one of the most consistently influential and contentious characters of the last 30 years of American counterculture”.

Same old story.

On fascism, see : George Orwell, ‘What is Fascism?’ (1944); Chip Berlet, ‘Fascism: An Essay’ (1992); Umberto Eco, ‘Ur-Fascism’ (1995); Roger Griffin, ‘The palingenetic core of generic fascist ideology’ (2003 PDF); | On post-WWII fascism, see : Kevin Coogan, Dreamer Of The Day: Francis Parker Yockey And The Post-War Fascist International (Autonomedia, 1999).

Bonus Nomeansno!